On November 2, 2014, Price succumbed to a catastrophic cerebral hemorrhage while speaking in New Brunswick at a Rutgers Jewish Film Festival screening of Joachim Prinz: I Shall Not Be Silent, a film project in which he had participated. Rabbi Bennett Miller shared the podium and recounted Price's final words in response to a question about the future of civil rights in the U.S.: "I still have hope." Price died on November 5, never having regained consciousness.

Early life and education

Price was born on October 13, 1945, in Washington, D.C., the middle child of James Leo Price, Sr., who was employed by the United States Department of the Treasury, and Anna Christine (Spann) Price, a home maker through much of his childhood, and later a domestic worker and professional seamstress. His older brother, James Leo Price, Jr., a distinguished school principal (retired), returned to South Carolina to raise his family. Younger sister Jarmila Louise Price-Gaines, a director of music education programs, resides in California. Price's parents had both been participants in the Great Migration of African Americans from the American South in the early twentieth century. They evaded Jim Crow by moving to northern cities in search of better employment and educational opportunities for their children.[1]

Price felt fortunate to be brought up in Northeast Washington's Brentwood community surrounded by family and friends and the close-knit fellowship of Israel Metropolitan C.M.E. Church. He attended Washington's McKinley Tech High School, where he was an accomplished distance runner on the school's track team and competed in cross country and mile run events. Also, with his brother, he home delivered the major Washington newspapers.[1]

Personal life

In 1988, Price married Mary Sue Sweeney, now director emerita of the Newark Museum.[3]

Career

Academia

Price was encouraged to enter the field of African American History by his graduate advisor at the University of Bridgeport, Bruce M. Stave. As a doctoral candidate at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, Price began researching Newark's and New Jersey's African-American history, and taught for the 1968-69 academic year at the newly opened Essex County College. In February 1969, a group of black Rutgers University-Newark students occupied the campus's Conklin Hall, demanding increased enrollment of minority students and increased hiring of minority professors. As one result of the university's response to the students' demands, Price was hired and began teaching history at Rutgers University-Newark in the fall semester of 1969. He remained an active member of the history faculty until his death, including serving as director of the graduate program and chair of African and African-American Studies. In 2002 he was named Rutgers University Board of Governors Distinguished Service Professor.[2]

Newark

Price was a leading authority on Newark's history. The class he developed on the topic has been among the most popular at Rutgers University-Newark. He wrote extensively about the city's history, but also shared it in more direct ways with the public, via regular bus tours of the city and media appearances. "The Once and Future Newark with Clement Alexander Price", produced by Rutgers University-Newark and broadcast on New Jersey Network in 2006 has been reissued in 2015 in a special expanded commemorative version.[4][5] In early 2014, Price was named the official historian of Newark. He served as chairman of the planning committee for Newark's 350th Anniversary, which will take place in 2016.[2]

Public art and humanities

Price made public engagement an integral part of his scholarly activity, believing not only that scholarship should be made accessible to a broad American public but that the critical thinking and new ideas it fostered were essential to a more equitable and just development of Newark and the nation. Historical memory - whether produced by traditional academic scholarship, museums, or public monuments and historic sites - was at its best and most useful when it was most democratic and complicated.[6]

Together with Gloria Hopkins Buck, Marjorie Fredericks and others, Price was a founding member in 1975 of the Newark Black Film Festival, the longest continuously running festival of its kind and widely admired. The 40th anniversary presentation in the summer of 2015 was dedicated to his memory.[7]

With artist Larry Kirkland and landscape designer Robert Preston, he designed the Civil Rights Garden in Atlantic City, New Jersey, documenting the history and struggles of African Americans. Opened in 2002, this public art and history project of the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority has been called the most significant public commemoration of the modern civil rights movement in any northern state. He also served on the National Trust's advisory committee for the restoration of President Lincoln's Cottage at the Soldiers' Home in Washington, D.C., which opened in 2008.[8]

Price Institute on Ethnicity, Culture, and the Modern Experience

Price founded the Institute on Ethnicity, Culture, and the Modern Experience in 1997 at Rutgers University-Newark, an interdisciplinary academic center that, through public partnerships and programming, offers the Newark metropolitan area the finest thinkers and artists engaged with key issues of modern life. Its motivating belief is in the centrality of creativity and critical thinking to the continued revitalization of Greater Newark and the nation. The Institute is considered the culmination of his life's work, and works with community partners, scholars, and artists to bring the important civic issues in race, culture, and Newark into public discourse through public programming. The Institute was renamed for Price on February 20, 2015 as the Clement A. Price Institute on Ethnicity, Culture, and the Modern Experience.[9]

The Marion Thompson Wright Lecture Series is presented by the Institute, one of the longest running and considered among the most prestigious Black History Month observances in the country. It was founded in 1981 by Price and Giles R. Wright, the inaugural director of the Afro-American History Program at the New Jersey Historical Commission. In 2015, the lecture series celebrated its 35th Anniversary with the theme "Curating Black America", honoring the forthcoming opening of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. The 36th Annual Marion Thompson Wright Lecture series will take place on February 20, 2016 and will explore criminal justice in the African American Experience. Among the distinguished lecturers in this series have been Sterling Stuckey, Max Roach, James Farmer, Esther Rolle, Ali Mazrui, Eric Foner, Basil Davidson and David Blight.[10]

Professional affiliations and appointments

Price was agency lead for the National Endowment for the Humanities on President Barack Obama's 2008 transition team. He was appointed twice by President Obama as vice chair of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, and appointed Newark City Historian in 2014 and as chairman of the 350th anniversary of Newark's founding in 1666. Price was also a member of the Scholarly Advisory Committee to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African American History and Culture; a member of the advisory council for the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History; a trustee of the National Trust for Historic Preservation; a trustee of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation; and former chairman of the Save Ellis Island Foundation and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.[2]

Some highlights of his significant public service contributions include:

Member, American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, MA, 2013

Panelist, "The Place of Community in Pluralistic Societies", National Endowment for the Humanities/Arts & Humanities Research Council workshop, Washington, D.C., March 30-31, 2011

Member, Editorial board of the Journal of Community Engagement and Scholarship (JCES), University of Alabama, 2008-11.

Participant, Project Interchange Seminar in Israel for the leadership of the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture, Dec. 2007 - Jan. 2008.

Chair, James A. Rawley Prize Committee, Organization of American Historians, 2005, Member 2004 and 2006.

Director, New Jersey Council for the Humanities Teacher Institute, New Jersey Council for the Humanities, Monmouth University, July, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008.

Chairman, New Jersey State Council on the Arts, New Jersey Department of State, 1982-85

Honors and awards

Price was the recipient of numerous awards for academic and community service, including: appointment as City of Newark Historian, 2014; The New Jersey Nets Basketball Black History Month award at the Prudential Arena in Newark, New Jersey, February, 2011; the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Leadership Award from Essex County in February, 2010; a Lifetime Achievement Award from Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) New Jersey in November, 2008; and New Jersey Professor of the Year by The Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) in 1999. In 2006, he was inducted into the Rutgers University Hall of Distinguished Alumni. He held honorary degrees from William Paterson University, Essex County College, New Jersey Institute of Technology, and Drew University.[2]

Outstanding Achievement and Service to the Black Community, Association of Black Law Students, Rutgers

Human Rights Award, New Jersey Education Association, 1981

Fellow, New Jersey Historical Society, 1981

Outstanding Teacher of the Year, Rutgers University, Newark College of Arts and Sciences, 1977-78

Teacher of the Year, Essex County College, 1969

Publications and books

Price was the foremost authority on the black New Jersey past by virtue of his Freedom Not Far Distant: A Documentary History of Afro-Americans in New Jersey (1980), Many Voices, Many Opportunities: Cultural Pluralism and American Arts Policy (1994) and numerous other scholarly works.[2]

"When Historic Sites Reveal the New American Past: Reflections on History, Memory and the Unknown" (Preservation Leadership Forum Blog, 2014)

"Commemorating a New American History and Culture", in Jia Leilei, Editor in Chief, A Binational Conversation on Bridging Cultures, The Context: Place, People, History, The Third China-U.S. Cultural Forum Collection of the Theses (Beijing: Culture and Art Publishing House, 2013).

"On the Road to Freedom: A Sesquicentennial Observance of the Great Emancipation", in The Positive Community, (Montclair, NJ, Winter 2013).

"History and Memory: Why it Matters That We Remember", Epilogue in Jessica I. Elfenbein, Thomas L. Hollowak, and Elizabeth M. Nix, eds. Baltimore '68: Riots and Rebirth in an American City (Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 2011).

"Break Every Yoke, Let the Oppressed Go Free! African Americans and the Civil War", in The Positive Community, (Montclair, NJ, February 2011).

"The Foundations of Contemporary African American Life and History", in Mixing Metaphors: The Aesthetic, the Social and the Political in African American Art, Works from the Bank of America Collection, Howard University Gallery of Art Brochure, 2010.

"Foreword", in Nelson Johnson, The Northside: African Americans and the Creation of Atlantic City (Medford, NJ: Plexus Publishing, 2010).

"Perspectives: Is the Past Still Prologue?" Integral: The Journal of Fund for An Open Society, Spring 2009.

"The NAACP and the Black Church: A Centennial Acknowledgement", The Positive Community, June 2009.

"Public Spaces: Where People Meet and Talk", The New Rwanda; Prosperity and the Public Good, Scranton: University of Scranton, 2009.

New School University, "Are We Ready for A Cabinet-Level Position for Culture", The Vera List Center for Arts and Politics, 1999.

"Heritage and Scholarship", Rutgers Focus, A Newspaper for University Faculty and Staff, April 3, 1998, pp. 4-5.

"The Public Sphere in an Age of Contested Conflict", New Jersey Center for Law-Related Education Network News, (Spring 1997), 4-5.

"Composing the Community: Blacks Making and Teaching Music in Southern New Jersey", introduction in Henrietta Fuller Robinson and Carolyn Cordelia Williams, Dedicated to Music, The Legacy of African American Church Musicians and Music Teachers in Southern New Jersey, 1915-1990 (Cherry Hill, NJ: Africana Homestead Legacy Publishers, 1997).

"The Civility of William M. Ashby", in William M. Ashby, Tales Without Hate, revised ed. (Newark, NJ: Newark Preservation and Landmarks Committee, 1996).

"A Consideration of New Jersey Afro-American Scholarship", The Journal of the Rutgers University Libraries, LVI (1994), 1-3.

"Black Soldiers in two World Wars: 'Men of Bronze' (1980) and 'Liberators' (1992)", Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, XIV (1994), 467-74; republished in John W. Chambers II and David Culbert, eds., World War II, Film, and History, Oxford University Press, 1996.

Many Voices, Many Opportunities: Cultural Pluralism and American Arts Policy (New York: American Council for the Arts, 1994).

"The Parlous State of New Jersey History", New Jersey Historical Commission Newsletter, 24 (June-July, 1994), 1-2.

"Diversity on Common Ground: The Troubled Quest for Order by American Museums", Connecticut Humanities (Spring, 1994), 4.

"Turning Memory Into History: The Past as Viewed by Blacks in Morristown, New Jersey", foreword in Cheryl C. Turkington, Setting Up Our Own City, The Black Community in Morristown, An Oral History (Morristown: Joint Free Library of Morristown and Morris Township, 1993).

"Documenting Slavery's End in Monmouth County, New Jersey", introduction to The Manumission Book of Monmouth County, New Jersey, 1791-1844 (Red Bank, NJ: Monmouth County Office of the County Clerk, 1992).

"Been So Long: A Critique of the Process that Shaped 'From Victory to Freedom, Afro-American Life in the Fifties,'" in Kenneth L. Ames, Barbara Franco and L. Thomas Frye, eds., Ideas and Images: Developing Interpretative History Exhibits (Nashville: American Association of State and Local History, 1992).

"James A. Brown, Fellow Traveler", in The Power Within: An Exhibition of Recent Works by artist James Andrew Brown (Newark, NJ: Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 1991).

"Folk Life, City Life and Blacks in the Bottle", in Crisis of the Minority Male, Report of the Proceedings of a 1989 Conference (Newark, NJ: The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, 1990).

"The Afro-American Experience in New Jersey: Themes and Pedagogy", The Docket, the Journal of the New Jersey Council for Social Studies (Spring 1990).

"In Search of a People's Spirit: The Harmon Foundation and American Interest in Afro-American Artists", in Gary A. Reynolds and Beryl J. Wright, eds., Against the Odds: African-American Artists and the Harmon Foundation (Newark, NJ: The Newark Museum, 1989).

"Two Lives: Searching for a Balance in Our Essential Duality", Vantage Point, The Magazine of the American Council for the Arts (July-August 1988).

"We Knew Our Place, We Knew Our Way: Lessons from the Black Past of Southern New Jersey", Seventh Annual Report of the New Jersey Public Policy Research Institute, Blacks in New Jersey, 1986 Report, A Review of Blacks in South Jersey (Newark, NJ: New Jersey Public Policy Research Institute, 1986).

"The Cause in Which We Are Mutually Engaged: Quakers and the Dawn of Black Freedom in New Jersey", in M.M. Pernot, ed., After Freedom (Burlington, NJ: Burlington County Historical Society, 1987).

"Cultural Pluralism: An Historical Perspective", The Afro-American Artist in the Age of Cultural Pluralism (Montclair, NJ: Montclair Art Museum, 1987).

"The Strange Career of Race Relations in New Jersey History", The Black Experience in Southern New Jersey (Camden, NJ: Camden County Historical Society, 1985).

"We Who Have Always Been With You: Race, Slavery and Freedom in New Jersey, 1804-1860", 15th Annual New Jersey Council for History Education Annual Conference, Princeton University, December 7, 2007.

"The Origin of the Modern Civil Rights Movement", Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, Museum of the City of New York, October 29, 2007.

"The World of John Rock", 4th Annual John S. Rock Memorial Lecture, Salem County Historical Society, Salem, New Jersey, October 21, 2007.

"Flawed Freedom: New Jersey and The First Emancipation", 20th Annual Conference, Slavery and Abolition in New Jersey, New Jersey Historical Commission, Trenton War Memorial, November 20, 2004.

"On Anchoring a Generation of Scholars: P. Sterling Stuckey and the Nationalist Persuasion in African American History", Africans, Culture, and Intellectuals: P. Sterling Stuckey and the Folk, University of California at Riverside, Riverside, California, Saturday, May 22, 2004.

"History in the Public Square: The Uses of Public Space for Historical Commemoration in New Jersey", Sixth Annual John Henry 'Pop' Lloyd Lecture, Atlantic City, NJ, October 11, 1998.

"The Twilight of Optimism: Black-Jewish Relations in Newark During the Sixties", Conference on Politics, Law, and the Jewish Community, Jewish Historical Society of MetroWest, Whippany, New Jersey, September 12, 1997.

"Race and the Teaching of American History", Princeton Summer Institute for Teachers of History, Princeton University, July 14, 1997.

"Hammering Out A People's Past: The Making of Afro-American History", Bowie State University, Maryland, April 20, 1996.

"Dedicated to Music: The Legacy of African-American Church Music Teachers in Southern New Jersey, 1915-1995", Annual Meeting of the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History, Philadelphia, October 7, 1995.

"Oral History and the Negro Baseball Leagues", Annual Meeting of the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History, Philadelphia, October 6, 1995.

"Deeds Survive the Doer: Marion Thompson Wright and the Construction of New Jersey Afro-American History", Annual Meeting of the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History, Philadelphia, October 5, 1995.

"Controversial Exhibits: Academic Freedom, Institutional Mission and Community Participation", American Association for State and Local History, Saratoga Springs, New York, September 9, 1995

"The Role of the Arts and Humanities in Shaping Public Policy", Spoleto Festival USA 1995, Charleston, South Carolina, May 27, 1995.

"The Underground Railroad in Context: Preserving African-American History on the Urban Landscape", Paterson Museum, May 17, 1995.

"Black 'Eagles' of World War II", The Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis, New Brunswick, New Jersey, November 7, 1994.

"Blacks and Jews in the City of Opportunity: Newark, New Jersey, 1900-1967", Jewish Historical Society of MetroWest, Whippany, New Jersey, June 13, 1994.

"Black Workers at the Twilight of the Civil Rights Movement", New York University, Wagner Labor Archives, May 21, 1994.

"Race and Perception: Mounting Exhibitions in African American History and Culture", Annual Meeting of the American Association of Museums, Seattle, Washington, April 26, 1994.

"Paul Robeson, the Scholar", Institute for Arts and Humanities Education, The Newark Museum, April 23, 1994.

"Teaching New Jersey African American Culture", Conference on New Jersey Studies, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, March 16, 1994.

"Diversity on Common Ground: The Troubled Quest for Order by American Museums", Connecticut Humanities Council, Waterbury, Connecticut, November 15, 1993.

"Black American Soldiers in Two World Wars", The Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis, New Brunswick, NJ, October 22, 1993.

"Historical Roots of the Relationship: The Early Years of Interaction", Conference on "Demythologizing Blacks and Jews", State University of New York at Stony Brook, April 25, 1993.

"The Past As Prologue: Modern Afro-American Life in Morris County", Conference Keynote Presentation, "Chanceman's Community: Twentieth-Century Black Morristown", County College of Morris, April 23, 1993.

"The Historian's View of Genealogy", The Genealogy Club of The New Jersey Historical Society Library and the New Jersey Chapter of The Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society, Newark, NJ, February 20, 1993.

"Reinterpreting Museum Collections from the African American Perspective", The Old Barracks Museum, Trenton, NJ, February 6, 1993.

Commentator, Symposium for "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s and 1940s by African American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams", The Newark Museum, January 23, 1993.

"Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism in American History", Vassar College, November 1, 1993.

Commentator for the conference panel "Textile Workers and the Culture of the Working Class", William Paterson College, December 5, 1992.

"Walt Whitman's Vision of America", Symposium on "Walt Whitman's Vision of Democracy, Then and Now", The Somerset County Library, November 15, 1992.

"Cultural Pluralism: The History and the Debate", Annual Meeting of the American Council for the Arts, Atlanta, GA, September 17, 1992, with responses by Coretta Scott King, Dr. Billy Taylor and President Jimmy Carter.

"Afro-Americans and the Quest for Justice in New Jersey", Glassboro State College, Glassboro, NJ, February 25, 1991.

"West African Cultural Retention in Eighteenth Century New Jersey", Symposium on "Tracing the History and Contributions of African Americans in New Jersey", Fairleigh Dickinson University, Teaneck, NJ, January 16, 1991.

"The Concept of Freedom in Afro-American History", Lecture Series on African and African American Issues, Jersey City State College, Jersey City, NJ, September 27, 1990.

"The Harmon Foundation and the Making of A Modern Afro-American Ethos", Symposium for "Against the Odds: African American Artists and the Harmon Foundation", The Gibbs Museum of Art, Charleston, SC, June 6, 1990.

Presentation, "History in the Making of a Multi-Cultural Curriculum", Newark Board of Education Conference on Curriculum Reform, April 12, 1990.

"Looking Homeward: Afro-American Interest in Africa", Symposium on "Bayard Rustin as Art Collector", Kean College of New Jersey, January 31, 1990.

Comment, "The Distorted Patterns of Federal Transportation Policy", Annual Meeting of the Organization of American Historians, Washington, DC, March 23, 1990.

"The Image of African Americans in Modern Museums", Symposium on "The Politics of Portraiture: Icons, Stereotypes and Other Approaches to Multi-Cultural Imaging", National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC, January 25, 1990.

"How Oral History Becomes Written History", History and Bibliography Section, New Jersey Library Association, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, December 1, 1989.

"Historical Writing and Social Change: Marion Thompson Wright's Influence on Contemporary New Jersey Life", Symposium on "Writing New Jersey Afro-American History from Marion Thompson Wright to the Present", Newark Public Library, February 26, 1989.

"Folk Culture, City Life and Black Life in the Bottle: Historical Notes on Twentieth-Century Substance Abuse", University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, December 3, 1989.

"The Strange Career of Jim Crow in New Jersey History", Annual Meeting of the Burlington County Historical Society, Burlington, NJ, November, 1982.

"Of Color, Humanitas and Statehood: The Black Experience in Pennsylvania over Three Centuries, 1681-1981, A Critique of the Exhibition", Annual Meeting of the African-American Museums Association, Atlanta, GA, November, 1981.

"Co-operative Ventures with Minority Institutions", Annual Conference of the American Association of State and Local History, Williamsburg, VA, September 14, 1981.

"The Struggle to Desegregate Newark: Black Middle Class Militancy in New Jersey, 1932-1947", Annual Meeting of the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History, New Orleans, LA, October 18, 1980.